Whittled
by Kourion
Summary: Reid, like all of the Hunter Moon Killer's previous victims, had been brutalized. Unlike the HMK's other victims, he had also survived. Or so Morgan hopes. / MORGAN-REID friendship piece/ Graphic content in parts. T/M
1. Chapter 1

**Title - Whittled  
**

**Author - Kourion **

**Summary: **For two months, Spencer Reid had been missing. And now he had been found. Abducted by a man called the Hunter Moon Killer. And like all of the HMK's victims, Reid had been brutalized. But unlike the others, he's the only one to have ever been found alive. / Reid-pain. HC/ Morgan-Reid friendship fic.**  
**

**A/N: **My style is first person perspective, typically. For those of you who are familiar with my Mentalist fics, you'll know I tend to have a more experimental style. If it's not your cup of tea, please just give it a shot.

This is my first Criminal Minds fic. Oh, my spell-check at the public library is, apparently, not working. All errors are my own.**  
**

**I know I have Mentalist fics to finish! My computer is in the shop, so the only update time I get is, unfortunately, at the library. **

* * *

Morgan's POV

* * *

When I was a kid, when things got really bad - when the memories got bad - I'd sometimes cup my hands together, and gaze through the restricted space.

Sometimes I'd use toilet paper rolls to do the same thing. I'd look at some microscopic space of my room, and tell myself that what I was seeing - some segment, almost _meaningless_ - was the only reality. That every awful thing I was feeling didn't have to exist.

All I had to do was focus on whatever I was focusing on and tune out the rest. So I'd stare, and focus, on inncuous things. Things. Not emotions. Nothing that could hurt.

Perhaps part of a sports poster, or part of a venetian blind. The chipped section of drywall near where I had attacked my door in a fit of rage wouldn't work, never could. It _reminded_ me.

But that was it. If I did it all right, it helped. I'd focus, and distance myself, and after awhile it helped. It helped to reduce the ache in my gut.

It didn't totally annihilate the feeling. Nothing did.

But it helped.

When I later joined the BAU, I found the skill came in handy. _Compartmentalization_. I wasn't the only one who'd tried to cultivate the skill, as I could recall Prentiss speaking the same words. The same admittance.

A much needed skill for anyone seriously considering a career in the FBI. Doubly so for a profiler.

So there I was, three years in with the BAU, and somehow still feeling pretty green at 31. And Spencer Reid came along. This not-quite-23 year old kid, who seemed in some respects as emotionally vulnerable as a child even though he possessed the mind of a scholastic giant.

At first, I found him quirky. Almost hard to take. His non-stop need to _inform_. To share what he loved with such nova-star intensity that anything I said in response fell flat, dead, empty.

I don't really think I found him smug or elitist for any extended period of time. Not really. Because he liked to share whatever he loved. Wanted the rest of the world to love it, too. He didn't hold his intelligence over everyone else. He wasn't a snot.

And it was pretty damn obvious that Reid loved to learn for its own sake, and that he liked to share his passions almost as much - not to show off - but because he wanted everyone around him to be as interested in the subjects as he was, as passionate.

Probably an impossible task. Certainly a Herculean one, given that he was interested in everything, it seemed. Passionate about so much. He loved facts and figures and stats and trivia far too much for anyone to keep up with him.

He quickly became a mock-little brother of sorts to our team. To me, Hotch, JJ Elle - and later to Emily. Gideon was always too much the dad for him, but Reid was the baby of the team. At almost five years younger than JJ, the next youngest, it couldn't be helped. And she had risen quickly - a star in her own right. But she also had spunk and a resolute sense of herself that made her seem her _age_. Reid didn't have that. He seemed hesitant. And times even self-deprecating. He seemed like a 14 year old emotionally, with adult insights, and the mind of a prodigy. A childlike-ageless blend that can really never be fully explained to someone who doesn't know him.

But I felt it, then. That self hesitancy. That doubt. Like he was expecting himself to screw up some routine task, and not just the obstacle course work. The physical training exercises.

I could never figure out why. Not really. Certainly he had eclipsed his peers in just about every area since childhood. Scratch that: since _infancy._ Save for the overt muscling-up obsession that seemed commonplace to the newer, younger and male agents, which I highly doubt he cared much about anyway.

But he remained somewhat hesitant. At times, almost blissfully unaware, squinting his eyes autistically as he relayed a fact. As if he had to shut his eyes to cut out the stimuli. He'd fiddle. Twirling his Casio 1970's watch around and around on his thin wrist, the arm itself the colour of paper, the veins blue-green strident in any light. I always wondered if he had anemia. His atrocious eating habits would have made it a real possibility: he considered sugar-coffee one of the four main food groups, with the other three being Rice Krispie squares, Fruit Roll Ups, and Zoodles. When I'd get on his case about it, he'd chew up a Bugs Bunny chewable vitamin, as if that somehow put my mind at ease. If anything, it made me realize just how oblivious he was about some things, such as how other people viewed him.

I saw him as a very bright, borderline-eccentric kid with a famously huge heart, tic-like mannerisms, and momentary lapses of self-esteem.

Of course, over the years, Reid semi-grew up. He'll probably always have a more youthful edge to him; he doesn't play by normal rules, or care about convention and in many respects - he's pretty innocent. But he was getting stronger, more self-assured. Especially in the last year or two.

Sometime he'd slip a bit (he had been too hard on himself for far too long to have the trait disappear entirely); mostly if he hadn't had enough sleep, or was feeling segregated from others, from people his age, from the ease of a friend-base outside of the BAU.

But he was doing _fine_, as far as geniuses go. He was learning to play the Oboe. He was getting his Masters in Philosophy (Existentialism being his favourite subdiscipline, I quickly learned ). He had taken a course in pruning and making bonsai plants. He was laughing more, reading our sarcasm better, and recovering from snarky comments like an adult and not a scared teen. He had even kicked a diluadad addiction - though we took his lead, and never talked about it - and had even stopped grieving for Gideon. At least, overtly.

**_He was doing so well._**

And then Kevin Daley, then unknown -_ then only referenced as the Hunter Moon Killer_ - had abducted my friend. My little brother.

Had kept Reid in a cave of a basement without sunlight or heat... for slightly over two months.

And when we found him - when we found Spencer - not dead, but just barely - we realized that all the progress and the growth and his increasing self-confidence had been hacked away at and all that remained of him was a very frail person.

A very lost person.

Very much unlike the Spencer Reid we were starting to know.

* * *

Today is visiting day.

Technically, I guess, every day could be visiting day. Provided we're not on a case.

But that's just a potentiality for some later time, when Reid's doing better.

When Reid isn't avoiding everyone's eyes, and muttering in one word 'sentences', and not radiating such self-hatred from his being that it takes all my strength not to shake him, yell at him, get him to SEE.

Upon approaching the nurses' desk, I can see that Monica is now on duty. I flash her a smile, and she jots down my name, and the time of my visit.

Derek Morgan. 2:08 pm, Saturday.

I no longer need to flash ID. She knows the whole team so exceedingly well, probably much to Spencer's upset.

Most days, I really think he'd prefer if we didn't come and visit him at all.

"How's it going, Derek?," Monica asks easily.

Monica reminds me of my sister, Desiree. But in teutonic form. She's an ex-pat from Berlin, and stands about 5 ft 10, 160 lbs. Not fat. Solid muscle. But her personality reminds me of my sister. They both have the same gaze in their eyes, the same warmth.

"Pretty good. Can't complain personally. No case, or I wouldn't be here. How's the kid doing?"

She gives a hesitant smile, then nods. Her eyes are dimmed now, but not her smile.

"He's doing okay."

"_Monica_..."

"These things...these things take time. He's not going to be like the old Spencer you knew in a week, or two, or three. Healing takes longer than that."

I sigh, almost inaudibly. **_I know this._**

"Is he up for visitors? I mean, if he's really having a bad day, I want to give him his space. But I don't want to let him slip from us."

Monica hesitates.

"He didn't tell me to turn anyone away," she tries to soften the blow with a pinched smile, her accent thick and somehow reassuring.

That such kindness exists universally, too. It's a consolation.

"That's not really a convincing argument, Monica."

She makes a quick scrawl on the pad, before I have time to object.

"I'm signing you in, Derek. So now you HAVE to visit him. If you leave, and he sees that on the docket - he's going to take it personally."

Crafty woman.

"Okay, then," I let out a pent-up breath I didn't even realize I was keeping inside. "Know where he is?," I add, not unpleasantly.

"I think he was washing up some clothes. I saw him in the laundry room earlier. Always with the Tide. It's nice to have someone so clean."

"Right."

I'm not really that surprised.

Reid's been doing a lot of laundry these days. Even when he doesn't wear his clothes, even then - he washes them.

* * *

I knock tentatively.

Reid is busy retrieving overcooked items from a red Maytag drier. The color of the appliance reminds me of a candy apple from a small town fair.

I blink when he extracts the items.

**_His clothes look baked._**

He gives me an awkward half smile that looks more like a frown while he nervously fiddles with the lines of the items, folding them perfectly.

Absolutely nothing at ease in his gaze.

He never was this precise before.

If anything, he was borderline messy: finger nails a little too long, hair that edged towards raggedness more often than not, clothes rumpled like he had slept in them, perhaps.

"No case?"

His voice still sounds raspy.

"No case," I agree. "How's your throat feeling, buddy? The chloraseptic doing anything for the pain?"

Reid hesitates, then shakes his head.

_No._

_Not much._

His throat still hurts, as I knew it would.

**_Everything that I ask him sounds so stupid these days._ **

"Well, it'll take some time to heal," I supply, dumbly. "Baby steps, and all that."

Reid stares at an impossibly narrow sweater vest for such a tall man.

**_He's lost too much weight. _**

**_He's always been thin - _**

**_no, _skinny - **

**_but now..._**

He folds it. Puts it in the cheap blue basket, amidst tawny socks and argyle knits of mustard yellow, and pea green that I always found so horrendously ugly until I met him. Then, after then, the colors grew on me. Not ugly, just strange, the mixtures.

But so very _him._

"It'll heal faster if I can just go home," he says. "My throat." It sounds like a whisper, but it's not. "Less talk, less badgering nurses."

I hesitate.

We both know Reid hasn't been in the clinic for two weeks because of his attack.

Sure, he needed recuperation time.

He did. He also needed two bags of blood that wasn't his, heating blankets, and a trauma surgeon to perform an emergency surgery of his lower quadrant large intestine. And that certainly was dangerous. And he came incredibly close to bleeding out.

But that's not why he's here _now._

"You got to work with your doctors."

He fixes me with a hard glare.

"I can outshrink any of them. This isn't...doing...anything for me. It's just making me..."

I give him a moment. Let him finish formulating his sentence.

He blinks at his pants, running a line across one yellow-threaded seam. Yellow, bright, like the sun - the thread. On burgundy courderoy.

_Where does he find these clothes?_

"My houseis probably in shambles. All my plants will be dead."

I fix him with a look.

"Penelope's been tending to everything, Reid. Your plants are fine."

_Your plants are fine. You're not._

"I can't-," and he shuts his eyes.

I force myself not to waver on this.

"I want to go home, Morgan. Sleep in my bed. Not _here_. I hate it here."

He bites back a sob, and I realize this would be infinitely easier to do if he didn't sound like a homesick 7 year old.

"Reid, you know they won't take any-"

"I'm sorry," he whispers, interrupting my speech. "I am. I shouldn't have said it. I didn't mean it. I _didn't_."

I will my stomach to unclench.

"But Hotch thought you did. Rossi thought you did. And I think, at the time, you _did_ mean it."

He regulates his breathing. Twists his mouth, like he's tasting something sour.

"I don't mean it _anymore._ And I want to go home. This isn't my home. I want to go back to my apartment."

I help him fold two mismatched socks. Not like it matters much.

All of Reid's socks are mismatched. He likes them that way. Mismatched socks, tweed pants, wearing his watch on the outside of his shirts, sweater vests. Satchel bags.

Some things are just him.

I toss the remaining orphaned items into his laundry basket, and pass over a book.

"Dabrowski. You asked for it, I looked for it. I have some cds in there too. Debussy, some jazz. Recompositions of Vivaldi. All your favorites."

Reid lets his lean fingers run along the plastic seam of the cds. He looks indecisive.

"I kept the bills. You want something else, just let me know. I'll try to get you whatever you'd like."

A ghost of a smile flitters over his face.

"No. This is fine. It's great. They're great. I love everything."

His voice sounds dead.

"And yet you look like I killed your puppy."

"It's not my birthday, Morgan. It's not Christmas. It's _not_...it's not right."

"You're sick, Reid."

Anger, then. Just a bit. So faint that probably no one else save for me or a member of the team would catch it.

"I'm not _sick_," he gets out. Just barely.

He doesn't want to talk about this. I get it. I do.

Because I didn't want to, when it happened to me.

And so much more happened to him.

"Keep working with your doctors. They'll sign off on an out-patient basis as soon as you show you're willing to work with them, right? So work with them."

He folds up the brown paper bag of books, and new cd's and earl grey tea.

And doesn't look at me again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title - Whittled - Part 2  
**

**Author - Kourion **

**Summary: **For two months, Spencer Reid had been missing. And now he had been found. Abducted by a man called the Hunter Moon Killer. And like all of the HMK's victims, Reid had been brutalized. But unlike the others, he's the only one to have ever been found alive. / Reid-pain. HC/ Morgan-Reid friendship fic.

**Please note: **these chapters may be shorter than my average length chapters (typically, I prefer 5,000+ word chapters. In this case, since my net access is restricted to the library until my computer, I will try to post more frequently, even if the chapters themselves are shorter. In other words: I'll do my best :)).

My spell check, of course, is non-existant atm. All errors are my own.

I don't know if I've gotten 'Reid' at all here. Don't get me wrong: I love him to pieces, but he's so much _cuter _than I am and genuinely sweeter...whereas I usually get compared to a blond Lisbeth Salander or something. :/

Any personality 'differences'...well, just try to chalk them up to trauma on Reid's part, jaja?

* * *

Reid's POV

* * *

I'm not used to being rude.

But I'm also not used to feeling like _this._

This combination of anger, loss, rage and everything else so tightly wound up in one, overreactive bundle.

Contradictory feelings. A sense of wanting to be alone, to have Morgan leave. To just...not have to worry what he's thinking about. What he's thinking of _me_. Of who I am now.

And then another very real, very present part of me wants him to stay. Maybe get a bite of supper, play a game of chess, or _something_. Not talk, no. But do relatively normal things. Things that we used to do together on the plane, or on our downtime.

But he's just watching me. Just studying me, observing me - and I hate it. It's making me irritable, and defensive.

I clear my throat.

"Thanks for helping with the clothes, Morgan."

Even his name sounds wrong when I say it now.

_Everything sounds wrong when I say it now._

"No problem, kid," he mutters softly. Like he has to be_ nice_ to me. As if I'll break apart if he doesn't whisper-talk.

And I hate that too.

_Whisper-talking. _

_Like I'm some abused...child, or something. _

He tosses over one remnant sock in my direction. I catch it with uncharacteristic quickness, then wince as I feel something sting and tug like a cord-line through my wrist.

**_And that would be stitches, you idiot._**

"Not a problem," Morgan adds a moment later, when I look down and away from him. I'm hoping he'll clue in soon. That I don't like him _watching_ me. It makes my guts squirm. "It's not like you have that much stuff here. You sure you don't want me to go back to your place and get more of your stuff?"

I hesitate.

I don't really want too many of my possessions here.

It would feel like I'm _moving in_. As if they all expect me to be here for an extended period of time, now. And I don't like that prospect. It makes me feel - _suddenly_ - hot and dizzy.

It brings back ancient fears of being locked away.

Like my mother.

"I don't know. Maybe that makes sense. Maybe," I agree, just a few beats too late. "I just don't want to get too comfortable here. I-"

I stop talking.

Before - _before all this_ - I never realized how completely ridiculous I sounded most of the time. My voice, far too high pitched. Now I have that understanding, and the memories, too. Too many memories.

Screaming and pleading. And crying.

_Giving in._

I hate my voice now. All the same, I wish I could just get on with everything and not have to speak at all.

_Though selective mutism surely won't allow me to return to work anytime soon..._

**_And_ _I need to work._**

I need to do something other than think about what happened.

"Spencer?"

I wish he'd stop doing that too. Calling me Spencer.

I was never "Spencer" to Morgan. I was Reid. Always Reid. Well, sometimes "kid" - but _usually_ Reid. Never "Spencer."

_But then someone hurts me - and suddenly I'm Spencer?_

Only _Henry_ gets to call me Spencer. And my mom.

Everything else seems out of place and disordered and _wrong._

Just another reminder of what happened, and what's changed.

"Reid?"

"Fine. _Yes._ That would be good. Thank you."

Sometimes, now - I have to talk. If I don't, they get concerned. Even more concerned than they already are, and I can't have _that_ at all. Not when I'm the cause of so much of it in the first place.

But I hate that my voice sounds even more shrill than it did before I was taken.

Even more high pitched.

Even more-

_'Scream like a little girl, Agent! Scream for the cameras!'_

And suddenly, there we have it: my body is no longer hot.

I now feel cold and prickly and drenched in sweat.

A curl of coldness wraps around my ears. Trails down my spine.

And then Morgan's hands are on my shoulders, trying to get me to sit down, except there IS nowhere to sit down because we're _in the god damn laundry room and-_

"Breathe, Reid. Come on, buddy."

**_'Buddy.'_**

Another dreaded one to add to the list. The list of names I don't want to be called.

"Kid?"

I realize that I'm sitting cross legged on the floor. I can't even recall if Morgan positioned me this way, or if I just did this myself in a daze.

I cup my head in my hands, and will myself not to cry in front of him. I don't even feel sad. But my body - my eyes - _they_ want to cry.

**_Stop it. _**

Morgan re-places his hand lightly on my shoulder. I know he's trying to be _supportive_. I know he thinks - must think - that it helps. But it doesn't. It almost makes it worse. Because it makes everything seem that much more real. And I don't want to feel real at all.

I want to feel numb.

His fingers lazily drift back and forth over my shoulder blades, and I feel my intestines tighten up into a coil. Almost on instinct, I pull down my shirt, moreso. Not just over the cuts. Over my _hands. _

_Even if I wanted to refrain from doing so, I wouldn't be able to..._

"Please talk to me, Reid. We haven't really talked at all, and it's what you need. Trust me on this, kid."

"You don't need to be nice to me, Morgan. I'm_ fine_," I pant. If I speak, maybe I won't cry. That's my hope right now. "I just got dizzy for a second."

Morgan doesn't say anything to that. Thank God.

I will the tremulous, gaping _weepiness_ to depart.

And then a thunderclap of words:

"What have you eaten today, Reid?"

I still myself. Take in a breath.

_Don't want to let it out again..._

"Reid?"

I let the breath out. It rattles in my throat.

"I need to drink more water. I don't drink enough water. That's it. That's all."

"Reid," Morgan fixes me with a not-quite glare. "I didn't ask you that. I asked you what you've _eaten_ today. What have you eaten?"

I wave him away dismissively.

"Soup, salad, - maybe some biscuits. Stuff. They bring me stuff, I eat it."

_Like a good little psych ward patient._

My voice is bitter and I sound like a child. A petulant, snot-nosed child.

"Reid," and Morgan finally exhales.

**Good.**

I _hope_ he gets angry. I hope he does. Anything but this _niceness_.

"I know you're down at least a couple more pounds. The only way that could happen is if you've cut back on your already inadequate diet, moreso. And I know you're on exercise restriction, so it-"

I feel anger flare up in my throat.

"That's none of your business. That's _my_ business. They shouldn't have told you. I could get them-"

"Reid!," and Morgan looks almost alarmed. With me.

At worst, BEFORE, he looked exasperated.

Never alarmed.

But that was BEFORE and this is NOW.

"No one _told_ me anything, Reid. They didn't need to. Your spine comes through your shirt. Your face is concave. And I know that no one here is going to go let you do anything physically strenuous in that state."

I want to kick at something, but that won't do any good. That will only delay my ability to get on with my life, and return to work. Morgan will confess all my little slip-ups to Hotch, and then they'll put something in my file and I'll be watched like a hawk for the next year.

_But if I leave here AMA, it's going to become even worse-_

"Reid, man. Listen. I'm not the enemy here."

I quell my age-old habit of running my hands through my hair. Wanting to straighten it out. It's a nervous tick, and one I've never quite been able to completely quell. That, along with fiddling with my watch. Spinning it around on my wrist.

Although I've made some progress on my most overt stims. Especially in the last few weeks.

Of course, these days, I also just end up ripping out the cuticles from my finger nails in the dark. If only to feel the pain swell, blot out the rotting in my gut. That almost-grief: the near-panic that I'll never be_ me_ again. Or, maybe even worse: that even if I could be the old me, once more - I wouldn't be happy with that anymore.

So now my fingertips burn, and when I look down I catch the slight ruby tint of dried blood.

I can feel a pulse drum in my head like a gong.

"Look, Reid. I hate this. You hate this even more, I'm sure. But I don't just want to up and leave. I know that's what you want right now, but I don't think it's healthy. You _need_ to talk about this. If not to me, then to someone. You can't just keep it all inside. It'll eat you alive. Trust me."

My scabs itch.

I want to peal the healing away and let the itch die down, but I can't.

My wrists are wrapped in five sheaths of bleached-white gauze, topped with heavy duty nursing tape completing the whole look. If I pull the gauze apart, it's just going to be re-bandaged and I'll probably be lectured.

"So...you're just going to ignore me then? Is that the plan?"

"I'm not ignoring you, Morgan," I grind out. "I just refuse to talk about _this_ with you."

His eyes turn serious. Like he's talking to one of the survivors from our cases.

"Reid. I get it. I do. But you have to know that I understand what you're going through. Maybe better than anyone else on the team. I want to help you, but you have to give me the chance."

Except he doesn't.

Understand, I mean.

Not really.

_Because he was a kid when he was hurt._

_A child. _

_And I was a man. _

_And an FBI agent._

And I relinquished.

And it was filmed.

_and everyone saw. and everyone knows. _

_everything_

"Get rid of the shame, Reid. Come on, trust me on this! Don't _own_ this shame. Don't own it. Reject it. Don't let that monster make you feel like this about yourself. You're still _you_, Reid. You just need time to heal."

I bottlecap a choking in my throat. A sound like tires on pavement tries to escape, instead, and I realize dimmly that Morgan must have heard it, too.

Because I want to believe Morgan. So much.

**_But I don't._**


	3. Chapter 3

**Title - Whittled - Part 3  
**

**Author - Kourion **

**Summary: **For two months, Spencer Reid had been missing. And now he had been found. Abducted by a man called the Hunter Moon Killer. And like all of the HMK's victims, Reid had been brutalized. But unlike the others, he's the only one to have ever been found alive. / Reid-pain. HC/ Morgan-Reid friendship fic.

**Please note: **a family friend has lent me a computer until my own computer is back from the shop. It's still a little slow, and opening up two web browsers slows everything down considerably. That said, I don't have individualized "thank you"'s to offer everyone. I'm sorry!

I am very appreciative of all the feedback, however; thank you, to everyone who reviewed! Your reviews really make my day! Please know that.

(Additionally, someone asked if this will become a death-fic story. It definitely will not. I find them too depressing, personally. So no worries - our Reid will be with us to the end of this, and possibly for many more stories to come. :))

* * *

Reid's POV

* * *

**_'Don't own it.'_**

Morgan's words echo about in my head.

I wish it was that simple.

I wish it was.

It sounds so simple.

What's more, Morgan's not the first to advance the idea that I "don't own it." My own doctors have more or less been advocating the same thing since I came to the clinic 13 days ago.

But no one ever gives me any pointers on how that's done. After all, it's not a conscious decision on my part to be miserable. Even if it is a depression of sorts, I'm surely not doing it on purpose.

* * *

I deposit my clothes into the cheap, cream colored cabinet that is located in the far right corner of my 'room.'

The cabinet is about three feet tall, if that, and doesn't have handles. Instead, it has geometric cut-out shapes in the wood so that a patient can simply open the drawers without knobs.

The reasoning, I guess, is that a knob could be pulled apart from the drawer base, and the screw could suddenly become a weapon to the occupant of the room. Be used to perpetuate some act of self-harm.

And that's where I am now: in a room with low level lighting (probably designed that way, too. With the intention of inducing sleep for considerably more hours each day) and with fixtures and furniture intended for a toddler.

Actually, I wouldn't be half surprised to learn that they raided their local Ikea children's department for their decorating schema. I'm almost surprised there's no stuffed plush animals around here, with names like "Klinga" and "Jbarjllen."

But really, this all lies with me. Because they don't trust me with anything, now.

They don't feel that they can _afford_ to.

Which stings.

And makes me angry, I admit it.

Because that's beyond unfair.

* * *

_As it were, by my rough estimation..._

_I was kept by Kevin Daley for over 67 days._

_More than two months._

**_I don't know why they can't realize that I had lost hope that they'd ever find me at all._**

**_I don't know why they can't understand that 67 days in the presence of a sadist_**

**_is 67 days too long._**

* * *

_And I didn't want to get to the third month._

I knew what was coming for victims that made it to the third month.

The whole team knew what awaited Kevin Daley's victims who made it that far.

And I knew that death was preferable.

But, still - here I am.

Alive, when I should be dead.

Or, now - by miracle of miracles - in the hospital, when I should be at home.

_As if my act was a routine suicide attempt_. One generated by biochemical falterings, and overwhelm, and isolation alone.

As if I was depressed, but simply didn't seek help. Didn't see a way out of the mess in my mind.

It was never that simple when I was Kevin Daley's prisoner.

The thought makes me a little woozy, and I angrily stash my items away, before sitting on my bed.

The unfairness of it makes me feel betrayed. Deep down, I think that's part of the reason why I am finding it difficult to let go what happened. Because it's not just what Kevin Daley did to me.

It's the fact that everyone I worked with is acting as if my actions were somehow...beneath me.

As if they are now _disappointed_ in me.

Even when we all knew what happened to victims who reached their third month.

Even though we all knew that the torture and the violence would escalate into something almost unimaginably evil.

* * *

The lights are so dim in my room that I find myself fighting to stay awake as I read an assortment of magazines that Garcia brought in for me a few days previously: collections of _Psychology Today_, _Scientific American_ and - for kicks, I'm sure - _Nylon Men_.

I'm saving the last one for a day when the boredom becomes overwhelming, although from the semi-used look of the thing (along with the yellow post-it notes that I can see emerging from the magazine) I have a sinking suspicion that Garcia has made the magazine an interactive one. Undoubtedly with recommendations as to how I can improve my current wardrobe, and her own stylized handwriting exclaiming what her favorite outfits would be for me, or something.

_I almost don't want to know._

Feeling the drowsiness descend, I quickly roll up the hem of my pants and squint to read the time.

It's a bit of a pain, to be sure. But the bandages are too thick on my wrists to reasonably wear the watch on my arm, and I don't like feeling dependent on anyone else for the time.

Instead, I toss the _Psychology Today_ over the edge of my bed, and prepare for a fitful catnap.

I have a counselling session in two hours, which I always seem to dread. At least, if I'm well rested, I'm less likely to appear out of control and more likely to be able to reign in my emotions. And even though I am a stomach sleeper, and have been since childhood, I will myself to fall asleep on my back with my arms resting lightly across my chest, angled to keep the stitches from tugging apart.

I feel like a vampire.

This clinic, my tomb.

* * *

"Spencer."

I squint against the offending sound, and try to turn towards the wall.

"Come on. Rise and shine, G-Man."

I bat down an impulse to rub my eyes. The gesture would appear childlike at best.

"Wht tym issit?" My mouth feels gummy.

Evan - one of the main day-shift nurses, gives me a smile.

He's like a big bear.

A big, tattooed Koala bear of contradictions. He looks tough, until he smiles. In which case you realize he's just a softy. A big softy with a penchant for motorcycles, kickboxing, and vegan living. (I really have no idea how someone like Evan bulks up on his diet of cherry tomatoes, hummus and cooked vegetables when I've always been scraggly, even during times when I've taken to consuming protein powder smoothies and egg white omelets.)

"You have 15 minutes until your appointment with Molly. Thought you'd maybe want to run a comb through your hair to make yourself all handsome for your crush," he grins.

"Shut up," I return, without feeling.

On the first day I was here, I was assigned as part of Dr. Molly Berreville's case load. I was not in the best of spirits, having been relinquished straight from the ER to the OR to a one day ICU bed to sleep..and then to _here_.

Being taken _here_ had felt like a slap in the face.

Ergo, I had probably said a few things that, in hindsight, probably hadn't cast me in the best light.

Dr. Berreville has been perfectly understandable about everything, of course.

She's the consummate professional.

I, on the other hand, still feel a little dodge-ish.

At this point, I almost wish they'd assign me a new psychiatrist.

"Just calling it like I see it, Spencer," Evan quips, breaking me from my thoughts and holding up a plastic, black comb.

My comb.

"I figured you'd want the help. I can only imagine it'd kill your arms."

I extract the comb from him quickly and fix him with a mock-glare, which only seems to delight him more so.

"Why don't you go tease Katyn? I'm sure she'd be the better recipient. She needs it. I don't."

Evan lets out a whistle, low and drawn out.

"_Testy._ Fine, man. Just trying to help."

And there we have it: I feel like crud again.

"No. Evan, wait. I'm sorry. I'm in a foul mood, and I'm taking it out on you. I appreciate what you're trying to do."

Evan gives me a slight nod.

"I get it, Spencer. You're used to doing things for yourself. I know what that feels like. And I know what it feels like when you suddenly feel like everyone's trying to do the basics for you. It's trying. Just...let me know if I can help with something, alright?"

The nurse stops, gives me a smile. It's not as robust, however, as it was when he first came into my room.

I will the guilt away. The unfathomable, pathological guilt.

"Thank you, Evan."

"So you're up and alerted, and I've done my job. Just don't be late and get me in trouble, man."

I nod.

* * *

Until your wrists are damaged, you never really realize how often the coordinating muscles, ligaments and flesh relate to everything you have to do on a day by day basis.

From brushing your hair, to brushing your teeth. Making your bed. Writing. Turning the pages of a book. Lifting a fork to your mouth to eat. Grasping a cup.

Almost everything physical, really.

So now I'm gingerly trying to button up the shell-like buttons of my tan and brown cable-knit sweater.

_A hoody pull-over suddenly seems like a much more reasonable selection for future appointments..._

I give myself a quick look-over in the small mirror overhanging the faux-oak desk.

I look pale and the darkness under my eyes has increased, but other than that I look more or less the same as I always have. Maybe microscopically thinner. Gaunter. But tidier, too, having trimmed my hair during my first week with the help of one of aides. More composed.

Actually, my hair is now the shortest it has ever been.

I go and find my laceless KEDS, and slip them onto my feet. The thick stripped socks that I prefer don't really work with such thin shoes, and quickly bulk up inside the canvas uncomfortably. But, like everything else these days - the decision was not mine to make.

Maybe if I ask pleasantly enough, they'll give me back my Converse shoes, sans laces.

_Anything would be better than these stupid canvas KEDS._

The shoes I'm wearing these days just scream _mentally unstable_.

* * *

"Come in, Spencer."

I feel like I've been called into the principals office.

Actually, I feel like _how I'd imagine someone whose been called into the principal's office _would feel.

I have the distinct honor of having been _that_ child. The one that never had a detention, or truancy report or trips-to-principal's-offices to contend with growing up.

(I just had to deal with 9 year old bullies that beat me up as a six year old, whilst finishing my last year of elementary school. Or 17-going-on-18 tormentors who tied a pre-teen me up to goal posts on the football field, and removed all my clothes for extra humiliation).

No, I wasn't the one _going_ to the principals office.

I was the reason why the _other kids_ got sent to the principals office.

* * *

I sit down abruptly, and try to will myself to relax.

The couch is a firm one, and my underside usually feels bruised well before the 55 minute appointment comes to an end. Which just makes everything even more uncomfortable.

"I'll get you a pillow or two this time, if you'd like, Spencer," my doctor offers, and I will myself to remain impassive.

My arms belie my anxiety, however, as I cross them in front of me like a shield.

_I almost can't help myself._

_Even though I know better._

_I know so much better._

"No. That's okay. That you, though," I answer primly. "I'm fine just the way I am."

Dr. Berreville gives me a raised eyebrow in response, then consults my patient records.

"Have you used the washroom in the last two hours?"

I hesitate.

"I take it that's a no, then?"

My face, I'm sure, is red.

"You can use the one in my office, and then we will get the weighing out of the way before we start today. How does that sound?"

I feel my teeth clench against my jaw, but nod sharply.

* * *

I wash my hands with apricot-verbena scented triclosan soap from _Bath and Body Works _and let my eyes wander over the counter top to take in a variety of little scented toiletry products.

There's a _Candy Cane Lane_ mint hand cream that I feel compelled to just pick up and sniff.

So I do so.

It smells like chocolate-mint ice cream, so I add a dollop of that to my hands and rub it in.

* * *

"Feeling better?," Dr. Berreville asks, her expression unreadable.

I shrug my shoulders.

"I wasn't doing anything on purpose. I merely fell asleep. I mean - as to why I hadn't used the washroom."

Dr. Berreville stares at me, as if trying to determine whether or not I'm telling the truth or not.

"You can run it by Evan. He's the one who woke me up. Frankly, I'm surprised that I can stay awake for longer than 10 minutes at any point in time, anyway. The rooms here are warm, and dim. Better suited to a nursery."

My doctor nods her head.

"That's part of the plan, Spencer. I would say that the vast majority of patients in this clinic have been chronically sleep deprived before admittance. In most cases, sleep can help with treatment and recovery. Something as simple as deep REM sleep? One of the most critical components of healing."

I fiddle with the bandages around my wrist. Debate saying anything at all.

But find I just can't help the words from spewing out, after all.

"And the fact that I was a little on the sleep deprived side has absolutely everything to do with me not taking care of myself, does it?"

My doctor seemingly ignores my words, and continues to study my chart.

A few moments later she adds, "I am not laying blame here. Certainly not on you. I'm asserting that in almost every case that we see, sleep deprivation is a component. Now, please stop delaying the inevitable. Socks and shoes off, please. Sweater too.

My 'pants' are thin sweats without pockets, and my shirt is a white tee that clings to my side.

"Should I turn around?," I gripe, staring moodily at the electronic scale.

It reads, with high accuracy, to 1/10th of a lb.

Dr. Berreville seems to play with the question in her mind for a moment before responding, and I realize then that impulsivity doesn't suit me.

"Do you need to turn around? Am I treating you for anorexia too, Spencer?"

I cross my arms once more, and step on the scale.

_Face forward_.

A moment later the red display hisses out:

_117.3_

_Down almost another two pounds._

_Morgan was right_.

Dr. Berreville's mouth is a stark line.

"That's another 1.9 lbs down, Spencer."

I can do the math for myself, thank you very much.

"I realize that."

"You can step off now. Go and take a seat, please."

She tosses me a pillow, and then retrieves a blanket and hands that to me, as well.

"So where should we go from here?," she begins cautiously.

As if this is a _conversation._

"I'm not doing it on purpose," I add flatly.

"Not my point. And frankly, while that's at least a more consoling answer than the alternative, weight loss at this stage - regardless of the motivation - is concerning. You must realize that."

I shift about on my pillow, then stop. Stifle down a gasp.

_The bones in my spine feel bruised._

Dr. Berreville consults her charts again.

"Your FBI annuals show a fairly consistent weight for the last three or four years. About 138. And even that was pretty much the lowest you should have been at your height."

"When I started with Gideon, back in my first year, I was about 122. And I weighed even less in University."

A couple more pages turn back as she consults the records with a frown.

"And what brought that on, do you think?"

I resent her line of questioning.

"I pretty much have always been on the thin side."

"It says you had esophageal surgery shortly after you turned 24. Couldn't swallow easily before."

I shrug.

"Fair enough. I had a hard time eating back then. Point _taken_."

"So what happened when you tried to eat a typical meal, before the surgery?"

I fiddle with the edge of the tape on my wrist.

"It would hurt. Sometimes I'd bring up a bit of blood."

"I see. Any history of stomach ulcers?"

I nod.

"Sure. They started when I was about 13. Then I was treated on a triple therapy regime, and was ulcer-free until about 17. But I developed a duodenal ulcer at 18 and from that point it was on-again off-again until I was almost 23."

"So, from the sound of things one could surmise that you didn't have the healthiest relationship with food? That it represented a source of potential pain for you."

I feel my heart begin to speed up and struggle to main a false sense of indifference.

"I guess. I was pretty nauseated after most meals."

"So, we are going to have to come up with a workable plan that allows you to regain some weight without generating more nausea. If what we are feeding you is making you sick, I want to know. Suggestions?"

I lean back against the couch. Try to seem almost casual about the whole thing.

"Ensure's out. Anything with dairy, really. I'm lactose intolerant."

"Well, we could make a dietary, caloric equivalent. Something without dairy, then. Peanut butter, almond butters, avocado. How does that sound?"

_It sounds like a gastrointestinal nightmare, is what it sounds like._

Dr. Berreville sighs.

"Alright, Spencer. Well, before you were taken...what was your typical day like, food-wise?"

_Damn it, why won't my heart stop racing?_

"There was no 'typical.' I wasn't ritualistic with what I ate. We'd be on cases much of the time as it was, but I guess I usually started the morning with coffee and milk replacement. Sugar, of course. Sometimes a piece of fruit. It really depended on how I felt. I'd usually get something around brunch time. Eggs, often. Salad."

My psychiatrist passes me over a lined piece of paper.

"Your homework assignment is simple. After our session, you'll construct a list of your favorite foods. Things you like, nothing too low calorie, please. We'll do our best to construct a dietary plan that you can live with."

_Better than nothing, I suppose._

"And when can we talk about my leaving here?"

Berreville closes her eyes. She looks like she has a headache coming on.

"I want you up 5 lbs first - at the very least - and I'll want to see you minimally once a week for a session. You'll be on an OP trial basis, so if I feel as if you're not taking care of yourself, well-"

"And then I can go home? That's it?"

My doctor seems hesitant to continue.

"What else do I need to do so that I can leave?"

"I need to be confident that you won't hurt yourself again."

Something whips up beneath my eyes, under my skull. A rage, that I quickly bat down into a submissive emotion.

So that it won't spill out.

"There were _extenuating_ circumstances that led to me doing what I did," I speak sharply, lest I say more than I intend.

"I realize that, Spencer."

"I didn't think I'd be_ found_. It wasn't a choice. It was what any sane person would have tried to do. Except, unlike the other people Kevin Daly took, I knew what was coming. They didn't. But if they had, they would have tried it, too. Morgan would have. Hotch. The whole team. Any normal person."

"Yet, Kevin Daly was the one who found you in that state, and stopped the bleeding. The bulk of it. He was the one who hurt you - but he was also the one that kept you alive."

I count back from 10.

Slowly.

And when I speak, my voice is a little too high, and a little too aggressive.

"Because he was a sexual sadist, and he didn't want me to escape what he had planned for me. We _both_ knew what was coming next, but I was the only one who knew that we both knew. He didn't save me to be kind, Dr. Berreville. He kept me alive because he knew death would be preferable to what he needed to act out with me."

And that's true.

_It hadn't been a glimmer of compassion that I had seen in his eyes..._

_not that night_

_ when he had found me on my bed_

_my legs chained down_

_ankles impossibly thin_

_like chicken bones_

_and blood everywhere_

_almost black, like oil stains_

_No._

_He hadn't tried to keep me alive because he cared about me._

**_He had been delirious with hated._**

**_Knowing I had been so close to escaping _**

**_the finale._**

His saving me wasn't some latent bit of humanity clamoring up within him. It was just one more telling sign of the depth of his sadism.

_He just hadn't conceived _

_that I would've cut my wrists_

I close my eyes, and try to keep my limbs from shaking.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title - Whittled - Part 4  
**

**Author - Kourion **

**Summary: **For two months, Spencer Reid had been missing. And now he had been found. Abducted by a man called the Hunter Moon Killer. And like all of the HMK's victims, Reid had been brutalized. But unlike the others, he's the only one to have ever been found alive. / Reid-pain. HC/ Morgan-Reid friendship fic.

**Please note: **my comp is back! :) I should be able to write more now (which is making me feel calmer just thinking about it)...

I want to say THANK YOU to so many of you. Some of you guys didn't just write the kindest reviews, but you also pm'ed me personally with encouragement. One or two notes in particular were amazingly sweet (you know who you are, although I have to PM you guys back later on as well!) I wrote this chapter primarily while listening to Rae Morris' "Don't Go" and Daughter's "Youth." The later, especially, reminds me of something that would be played on **_Criminal Minds_**.

**Next chapter:** Reid focused. It is going to get pretty intense soon.

* * *

Morgan's POV

* * *

When I get to the BAU parking lot, I turn off the ignition and sit.

I'm supposed to see Reid this afternoon, but we've been called to address a multiple home rape in the DC area. While usually that sort of case would fall to the local police or detectives, this case has been especially graphic and almost all of the victims have died shortly after their rescue, several within hours of getting to the Emergency Room.

So Rossi and I are going to go talk to the only victim who has made it; 24 year old Alicia Devitt. A PhD student pursuing a profession in abnormal psychology.

The irony of such a fate chokes me.

I gulp down rapidly cooling Starbucks and then crumple the container and pastries wrapper into a tidy ball, quickly searching my car for any lingering litter to take out at the same time. I'm able to find part of a wrapper to a previously half eaten granola bar, and reach for it too.

_God. _

_My car is a mess._

Right by the seat, half covered by an afghan throw is a paper bag - starchy and new. I pull it towards me and examine the contents. I notice the Barnes and Noble receipt and my eyes fall on his name.

**_Spencer Thaddeus Reid._**

His cashier was Delia.

He purchased the items at 11:44 am, almost four months ago.

And I have no idea what this is doing here. Until I realize that I gave Reid a lift to the bookstore ages ago. A lifetime ago.

When Reid was still...Reid. Quirky, animated. Happy to quote statistics. Pushing tangled brown locks behind his ears out of habit.

_This has been in here all this time..._

We had met up for a morning of cappuccinos and book scavenging (for him), and later - searching for new PS3 games and a couple new toys for Clooney.

_Thaddeus._

_Spencer Thaddeus._

_Huh. _

I never even knew his middle name before today.

I never even gave it a thought.

One of my best friends. And I do not even know the basics.

**_Thaddeus._**

_What do you know? Reid's more meticulous in how he fills out his application for the Barnes and Noble book club than he was when filling out his information for the BAU. _

_It fits him, though. I certainly could not envision someone naming him Scott, or Steve._

The books now lay out before me. There is one about conducting astronomical calculations within city limits. A few advanced crossword books. A couple sci-fi classics with covers that probably haven't changed much since 1950. And one that jolts my heart.

_Me, Myself, and Them: A Firsthand Account of One Young Person's Experience with Schizophrenia_, by Kurt Snyder.

I try to tell myself that it's nothing.

That it's just Reid. Reid doing everything he can to learn as much about the condition that has grabbed ahold of his mother. But the title, and his worries...

It does not feel like _nothing_.

Especially recently.

_You've certainly got more than enough to contend with, don't you kid?_

I check the receipt date again, as I feel almost compelled to put the memory into some sort of linear perspective.

_We were at the bookstore exactly two weeks to the day before he was taken by Daley._

_Less than three weeks before he would be repeatedly raped._

But this is what was on his mind.

At best, he was distracted.

At worst, he was dealing with the fear that he was losing his mind.

I roll up the bag and fold everything over cleanly, before putting it back under the afghan. I don't want to be the one to give him the parcel, now, knowing that he'll be aware I've seen the contents. Reid's always been intensely private. About all issues relating to his health, his body, or the inner workings of his mind.

But I guess, in his own way, he has shared more with me than any other member on the team.

* * *

_'You know that profile kind of makes it sound like Schizophrenia leads to serial killing."_

_"That's not what we said at all, Reid."_

_"You know, my mom has Schizophrenia. There are many different types."_

_"I know that."_

_"Catatonic. Disorganized. Just because someone suffers from an inability to organize their thoughts, or they can't bathe or dress themselves...doesn't mean they stab someone in the chest 30 times post mortem."_

_"Reid? What's really going on?"_

* * *

_Rap rap rap rap._

I look up quickly, startled by the sound.

Garcia's standing by the car, her lipstick a vibrant purple. She is wearing a t-shirt today. Ruby Gloom, or something.

She looks both cold and worried, having come outside in a rush.

I roll down the window.

"Sorry, Pen. I'm late. I know."

"Come on sweets; Rossi's waiting for you."

I sigh, and grab my keys and sunglasses, mentally checking off things I might need later in my head.

Reid's satchel bag actually isn't a bad idea. A place to chuck any potentially needed items, saving mental energy for other things.

Like questioning witnesses. Or in Reid's case, creating astronomical science projects from his balcony with a telescope.

* * *

The drive to the hospital seems to drag on and on. Rossi plays something bluesy, while I try to focus on the case.

Rossi hits the blinkers, and we wait for a car to turn on an amber light.

"You're not usually so late," he starts, calmly.

Carefully.

I suck in some air. Hold it.

"Well. We're all human on this team, Rossi."

Rossi nods. Starts to ask another question. Stops.

I can see his self deliberation.

Then: "How's Reid doing?"

I let my hand graze over a healing cut on my palm.

"He's better than what he was. Still not great," I admit with unconcealed honesty.

Rossi tilts his head a little bit.

"Of course not. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to him. It's not going to go away overnight."

Suddenly, I feel pissed off.

I recall Reid, years ago - battling with Dilaudid withdrawal. And later, from cravings. Denying that he even had problems. As if he couldn't expose his weakness to us. His vulnerability. But confiding in me about what happened to him at 11. Tied to a goal post after having all his clothes removed at the hands of countless bullies. I wonder how much that seemed like a molestation to him. To my scrawny, sensitive friend - who still changes in the locker rooms. Even today. As an FBI agent.

This _is_ probably the worst thing that has happened to him. In a long line of cruel events.

"Has he put on any weight?," Rossi proceeds carefully.

My head suddenly hurts.

"No. Not really."

He's lost weight. It is obvious. Reid's BMI was around 18 when he was taken, and was hovering at about 17.5 for the bulk of the time I've known him. Thin enough. Definitely thin enough.

But now he's clinically emaciated.

And I'm terrified.

"He's lost weight," Rossi surmisses.

I close my eyes. Count to ten.

I'm not mad at Rossi.

I'm scared out of my mind. Because Reid's getting sicker. And there's only one reason for that.

"Mmmm," I add, not wanting to implicate my friend, but certainly not wanting to lie.

"Derek," Rossi stresses, turning onto North Capitol. "If he's not eating, they're going to address it. He's with the best people he could possibly be with right now. Specialists."

I rub my hands together.

"Daley fed him, Rossi."

Rossi looks up abruptly.

"But the pattern. He starved the others. It was part of his MO."

My head dips down. Almost to my knees.

"But he fed Reid. Reid told me. And when Reid wouldn't eat, Daley would force it into him just like everything else Daley forced on him."

Rossi's face looks grim.

"Well that explains more than enough, Derek. Reid links eating with what he went through. It probably feels tainted to him now. Emotionally, it might even feel obscene to eat."

I unclick my seat belt, emotionally try to put myself in a different headspace. One of professionalism and calm.

"I know that, Rossi."

Rossi turns off the ignition.

"If Reid equates eating with sexual assault, or even just sex - which I suspect he does, it explains a lot. But it gives us a starting point too. On how to help him. Reid's overtly rational - he understands what he is doing doesn't make sense. Not if he wants to regain his strength and come back to work, which he's stated he wants. So now he has two differing needs. To regain what he's lost, and heal. But to also avoid any situation where he feels coerced. Or any situation where he feels as he did when he was with Daley. And right now, as scary as it is - it's not rationality that's winning out. It's fear, and it's self-loathing, and it's all the horrible feelings he experienced when he was with that bastard. But it's not out of a need to purely punish himself, and that's what you should focus on right now. It is a power play, but it is soothing to him."

I grit my teeth. I don't want to be here today.

"He feels like we're against him. Keeping him there. He hates it there. You know how he is about psychiatric hospitals."

Rossi shifts towards me.

"Of course he does. Because he knows what being there means. Reid's not typical. He's not dealing with typical insecurities and fears. Even for a rape victim. But as he can't take basic care of himself right now Morgan - he needs to be there. If for no other reason that that, he should be in clinic. You have to let go of the guilt."

But that is damn hard to do when all I can envision is him, as he is now. Skeletal. Eyes hollowed out like a corpse. Folding garments anxiously, like clothing material itself would bite him.

I cannot help but think he would do better if he was with friends.

We could encourage him to eat, to sleep.

It might not be easy. But we would support him.

We would care about his recovery so much more than a stranger ever could.

* * *

Alicia Devitt has rust coloured hair and the palest skin.

Her eyes are marred by two purple streams of bruising. Both corneal segments are red and unnatural, marred by subconjunctival hemorrhaging.

I pull up a plastic seat, leaving at least four feet between myself and her bed. Rossi lingers back even further.

"Hey Alicia. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. We will try to keep this short."

In another world, another time, a person might refer to Alicia Devitt as "baby faced." It's true, too. She looks more like a teenager than a woman in her mid 20's. She even sounds like a kid, when she speaks. The tone. The timber.

"I want to help. If I can."

Her breath comes in wooshes too, as if she's sprinted ten laps and is still catching her breath.

"Ok." I try to give her a reassuring smile. "My name's Derek Morgan."

Rossi holds up a hand, by way of introduction.

"And that's Dave Rossi. Now, at any time you need to take a break, or you don't feel well - _anything at all_ - you let me know. We will only go as far as you're willing to go with questioning, alright?"

Alicia nods, but does not look any more relieved.

"Ok." I smile again, briefly. "So three days ago you were preparing for a party. Was this a friend's party?"

Alicia hesitates.

"Basically. One of my peers. We weren't that close, but we...we got along well when we did spend time with one another."

"Birthday?," Rossi asks.

Alicia shakes her head.

"No. She had been accepted into a PhD program. I thought it might be nice to celebrate."

"Wow. That's definitely something worth celebrating," I encourage softly. "Psychology?"

Alicia shakes her head once more.

"No. Sophie does work in theoretical physics?"

She poses it like a question. As if she's not a hundred percent certain of the accuracy of her statement.

I realize that I've seen this sort of self-doubt before. Suddenly - like a lightening bolt - I feel terribly sad.

"She's not one for having parties or celebrating much. She's extremely serious, because it is expected of her. Everyone always expects her to get top grades, to always be the best at everything she does, because she is clever."

I give a nod. "Reminds me of someone I know. A friend of my own."

"Sophie didn't really have a lot of fun growing up. So a couple of us decided to host a surprise party. Invite only those who were relatively close to her. Nothing fancy, but just-"

The wheezing gets worse.

"I think that it was a very kind idea," I interject. "Can't think of anything worth celebrating much more than that."

Alicia's eyes darken.

"Sophie's only 19. She's...it hasn't been easy for her. It's a competitive program, and people can be cruel. Especially when someone is so young. Most of the PhD students are in their 30's. Or older, even."

In my mind, I see a slightly yellowed copy of a photograph._ Diana Reid at about 40, arms encircling a gangly 12 year old Spencer, who looked more like 9. Glasses - like something out of the 1960's, slightly shaggy hair. Body, rail thin. He'd just lost a tooth, a bottom one. A high school graduate, cap and gown. Huge smile splitting his face._

_Little boy lost._

_Cast into an adult world at 12, 13. No one else in sight at his level._

_Certainly not with his awareness, his sensitivity._

_What sort of mockery did he endure? Not only in high school? But in University?_

**_Reid had been accepted into his first PhD program at 16, after all._**

Rossi now deposits himself into a nearby chair. A marigold yellow plastic atrocity.

"You looked out for Sophie. Saw her like a little sister," Rossi surmises.

Alicia smiles faintly. Her words are resolute.

"Yes. She seems like someone who needs a big sister. A person to look out for her. She's brilliant of course, but in some ways she's also very-"

"Childlike?," I supply, thinking - ridiculously - of a rambling man talking about _Star Wars, and the Death Star. And kilojoules of energy and timelines. And whatever else Reid had been rambling about before I had walked away from him that day..._

Alicia nods.

"Yeah," she whispers, while toying with part of her hospital blanket.

"So you were setting up the party. The decorations. Getting everything prepared. Who else was with you?"

"No one. Not at three o'clock. The others couldn't make it until five. I knew I'd likely have to do the decorations myself. But it was an open invitation - anyone could have come on over sooner."

"Were you expecting anyone to come over sooner? Had you received a call or anything like that?"

Alicia hesitates.

"Not really. I mean, my parents let me use the house whenever I want. They were out, vacationing in Greenwich. Told me I could do what I wanted, just to clean up before they came home."

Rossi gives a chuckle.

"Rowdy and rambunctious, that's you huh?"

Alicia looks faintly pretty and wilted against the white linens. She closes her eyes as if exhausted. _Which I guess she is._

"There was a knock. I didn't think anything about it. I mean, we had planned a _party_. I thought it was maybe just one of the others...just coming earlier than expected to help put out the food and put up the decorations and stuff like that."

My stomach clenches. I can feel the squirm of adrenaline pulse out along my sides in ribbons of chemical sadness and dread.

We all know what is coming next.

"I would have thought the same thing," I state gravely, empathy cluttering up my words and making my throat ache. Almost as if I'm talking to Reid, himself.

"I didn't check the peephole. We had one; I didn't even utilize it. I just opened the door. I had a way to check to see if it was someone I knew, but I-"

Alicia stops talking abruptly, mentally beating herself up.

Rossi leans forward, taking my place.

"It was the middle of the day, Alicia. In a safe neighbourhood. You were expecting people to show up at a party. You had no reason to be concerned. No reason to guess for even a second that anything bad would happen."

Alicia lets out a shuttery breath. "I don't think I can help you. I didn't_ see_ anything."

"He was wearing a mask?," Rossi asks gently, while quickly catching my eyes.

A mask, in daylight. That would have stood out. People would have noticed something so strange. And our unsub wouldn't have chanced it.

"No. I don't think so. No. He_ didn't_."

Rossi clasps his hands together.

"But you can't recall his face? His eyes? Maybe...the colour of his hair?"

"He was dark. All dark."

I glance up at Rossi, who holds out a hand, silently asking me to refrain from asking a question.

"He was black?"

"No," Alicia hisses. "He was not anything. He - it is like he was a silhouette. I close my eyes and try to think how he looked. But he did not look like anything. A black cut out copy. A shadow man."

The girl looks distraught.

"I know that makes no sense. I am sorry. I just...that's how I remember him. Not _anything_. Just an outline."

Rossi looks sympathetic.

"Listen, Alicia - you are doing everything you can to help us, and we appreciate your assistance. I don't want you to worry about what that means. It means something, and it is our job to figure that out."

Rossi deposits one of our cards onto her night table. Retrieves a pen, and scrawls something else before standing up.

"I am going to leave this with you. It is our contact information - for myself, and for Agent Morgan. If you recall anything at all, do you think you could give us a call? Even if it seems funny, or small. Anything at all. You can even leave us a message if you would like. Okay?"

Alicia looks at her hands. She looks miserable.

I force myself not to squeeze her hand. It would do more harm than good in this scenario.

"If you can, try to get some sleep, Alicia. It helps. It really does."

I find it too hard to say anything else.

Not when I see Spencer Reid in my mind.

_It will get better._

_It will. _

_Just do not give up._

The words do not make it out of my throat.


	5. Chapter 5

**Title - Whittled - Part 5  
**

**Author - Kourion **

**Summary: **For two months, Spencer Reid had been missing. And now he had been found. Abducted by a man called the Hunter Moon Killer. And like all of the HMK's victims, Reid had been brutalized. But unlike the others, he's the only one to have ever been found alive. / Reid-pain. HC/ Morgan-Reid friendship fic.

**Please note: **for all the beautiful reviews, I want to just say "thank you!" so much. (_For those of you reading my Mentalist fic, "Little Stars" (about an abused child rescued by Jane and Lisbon) please know that the last chapter is one of the longest, but also a little bit of a nostalgic good-bye from me. I've been working on that fic for such a long time...so keep your eyes peeled. It'll be up by Saturday (possibly sooner!_))

Anyway - back to Criminal Minds. ;) What do you know? It's Reid's turn again.

Reviews are precious, and one of my new year resolutions is to personally thank all my reviewers, so please don't hold back.

Additionally, I have no idea if this chapter will be even remotely sensical to you guys. I tried to write from a place of emotions, and not logic. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be Reid, and to feel that degree of shame. So...yeah.

But if you like this chapter (and by like, I simply mean "appreciate" - as the subject matter is understandably difficult to 'like' in any real capacity!) please know that I wrote almost the entire chapter to Aphex Twin's "The Mellow Song" and Mark Isham's "A Sense of Touch." Music can motivate me almost like nothing else can. So if you haven't checked those songs out, you should!

P.S. If you know of any exceptional music that is pleasant to write to, please send recommendations my way. Sometimes I find that I write a lot more if I simply have really excellent music playing in the background. (For writing I tend to prefer pieces without lyrics, unless it's in a foreign language or sounds alien to me, such as Sigur Ros.)

**N.B:** this chapter is highly experimental. Parts of it - especially towards the later section of the story - will be composed in a flash-back format to convey the trauma of Reid's experience and his struggle with PTSD. Hopefully, that's what it will convey. If it works for you - if it makes you feel_ anything_ - please send me a line. If you hate the format...please send me a review, too (as long as it's not an outright flame, please).

All errors, spelling or otherwise, are my own.

**WARNING:** this chapter is a strong T+/ softer R. It deals with relatively graphic depictions of sexual abuse. You have been warned. If also deals with self injury.

* * *

**Reid's POV**

* * *

My skin burns.

I've been scrubbing at it with a bristle brush for 20 minutes. The water from my shower blasts over my chest in waves of heat so extreme that I know I would seem disordered to anyone who could possibly see me right now.

_I have to remind myself that no one can see me, of course._

_That no one is watching me._

My flesh feel raw and I turn my forearms over to examine the expanse of skin and to survey the damage.

I can see red petechiae dotting the landscape. Blood bursts from my rubbing. Testimony to my efforts to feel better, even though I never do.

Or certainly, I never do _for long._

I sigh, then force myself to stop the vigorous motion. It's a daily task: reminding myself that I have weigh-days and examinations and that if I go into the office bruised and wounded-looking, I'm only going to cause myself more problems.

Not less.

It's hard to pull myself out of the shower, though. It always is. The sound, so loud, so _repetitive in my ears_ - contrasted against that of cleanliness and heat and water and a RUSH of something almost hopeful. The sound of water. The sound of it gurgling down the drain, never to sit on my body again.

The noise from the shower blots out the sounds caught in my mind.

I think that's why I get so many showers now.

* * *

**_psychotic breaks can be triggered by trauma._**

**_schizophrenia, too._**

**_and i hear so much in my head_**

**_screaming and crying that never stops_**

**_and they say it's understandable_**

**_but how would they know?_**

**_how would i even know if it was something worse?_**

* * *

As soon as I turn off the shower, I'm freezing. The abrupt difference in the atmosphere - from loud to almost eerily quiet - makes me feel apprehensive. A harbinger of an anxiety attack, perhaps.

I think of the steps in order.

What I need to do.

Baby steps, now. Because even getting a shower is something that can still throw me off course. Especially since it dredges up the awareness that grit still needs to be expunged from my intestines.

* * *

I manage to locate my midnight blue tub of Nivea cream in record time.

It's actually _"Nivea for Men: Intensive Day Moisturizing Cream."_

I didn't purchase it; Morgan did. But it's been a huge help, so I'll give credit where credit is due.

My skin is incredibly dry these days, and the scent is soothing. It almost has a hint of something...mentholated. It smells clean and fresh and new. Almost clinical, but not harsh. It covers up the raw, bleeding smell that I can always feel trapped inside my body, now. Putrescence. The scent of burning meat. Contamination and sex and the smell of filth.

Of course no product is going to erradicate the smell. Not entirely. Not for _good._

That's where the showers come in.

Enough of both, and I can go a few hours and breathe in without smelling it. I know it would sound insane to someone who doesn't understand, but I truly believe that my olfactory sense has become...heightened since I was taken.

Maybe it's partly due to the fact that so many of my other senses were constrained. Dampened down. The sense of taste, of sight, and when Daley wasn't around - even the sense of sound. _All diminished in a dark basement with concrete floors, no light, no blankets, no anything at all._

It was just cold, and rank, and I shivered and hurt and wished I could have kept the bare minumum of my decency. My clothes, for sure. But if not those, a blanket.

Something.

_Anything. _Anything so that when he was done with me each night, I could cover myself back up. So that when the sex was over, at least I knew I didn't have to stay exposed in front of the others until he came back.

So at least I could have covered up the gore.

Blood, often.

Vomit - the first few times.

* * *

When Daley was in a bad mood - when he was enraged - the smells would become worse. The smell of _myself_. My body, betraying itself. The scent of urine, the first time it happened. Saturating my clothes.

which is why they were removed in the first place...

**_if you hadn't done that_**

**_maybe he would have let you keep them_**

**_maybe_**

**_maybe_**

**_you can never know_**

And then it got worse - the smell. Despite the cold.

It was everywhere. The scent of my _failure. _And I knew that it had been filmed; that made it ten times worse. To know that they had seen it. That they _must_ have. Somehow - even when I didn't think I could have felt more repulsed of my own body - it had _gotten worse. _Somehow, in some crazy way - that had been worse than the rape.

Because Daley had raped me.

But I had peed myself.

* * *

The next day, Daley took the chains off from my feet and stroked my face - almost lovingly, almost with _kindness. _

_Almost as if he was sorry._

He wiped at my face and my hands and genitals with a wash cloth while I squirmed and bit through my lip until my teeth tasted like blood, and I tried to go away in my head. He washed and he washed, and then my whimpers turned louder and more insistent as I begged him not to touch me.

_To leave me alone._

So he slowly broke apart. His kindness slowly left his body. Left his face. And that was when I knew never again to turn Kevin Daley down when he was being_ kind_.

That my biggest mistake hadn't been in voiding my bladder when he had cut me.

**_No. _**It had been in turning away when he had wanted to clean me.

When he had wanted to _have_ me.

Again.

* * *

The punishment for pushing him away was always the smell of blood and bleach. At first, I celebrated the scent. The scent of bleach, almost like chlorine. Almost like being in a pool. Being anywhere but there. It stung and it sat on my skin until I felt like it was drilling through to bone, and I'd think to myself: _"Good, then. You're still clean. Still clean."_

_**still clean**_

_**you were still clean**_

Because blood was still cleaner than the smell of sex.

* * *

I manage to return my toiletries to my 'cubby' about ten minutes before group. For a second, I feel such a swell of tension that I clench up my hands and stretch them out in a desperate attempt to dispel some of the anxiety.

It doesn't work very well, but it takes the edge off. I take a breath of air. Tell myself to stop it.

To **_STOP IT RIGHT NOW._**

_'right now,'_ my mind always whispers.

and always in the voice of a child.

me. as a child.

**and i have no idea why.**

* * *

Katyn is sitting propped up in an oversized faux leather loveseat. Her skinny legs are covered in clashing tights. Electric colours, neon leg warmers. Today she is wearing a hot pink sweatshirt with a puffy paint Koala on the front.

I tell my face that the sweatshirt is cute. Amusing. I tell my face that it should_ smile_.

That if I can't fake a smile...

_then I'm never getting out of here_.

* * *

Katyn is 22, which makes her the baby of our group. Her hair is pitch black, like asphalt tar, and razored. Her arms, I know, are razored too. Cuts upon cuts of badly healed scars. Some white and keloid-thick, others purple-pink: a more painful version of her clothes.

Obvious, badly hidden. At least, to me.

Unable to be concealed, no matter how many layers she wears now.

Because you only have to see them once. Lines and lines or razor tracks...and how can you ever forget? Forget what you've seen?

* * *

"You look like you just rolled out of bed," I say gently, by way of greeting.

It's almost 5:30 pm, but it's true: her hair is a halo of black knots.

"_Whatever_," she grumbles, giving me a look of near-irritation. I know it's just an act. But sometimes I wish I could just see her. Without the scowl.

_Because I don't know what she sees._

_I don't know if she sees IT._

_But I suspect that she must._

"Did you even use a towel? You're getting water all over the floor," the girl adds a moment later, before she shifts about. I see the Koala shirt rise above her torso just a little bit, exposing bone. Exposing 75 lbs of wastedness and grief and rage and one hell of an ugly childhood that never got to live past the tragically young age of nine.

It makes my heart hurt.

**_-It also reminds me of my own body-_**

A moment later she's smoothing down the fabric, playing for nonchalance. Indifference.

"I'm skipping group today."

I hold a breath. Release it. "You said that you wanted to get out of here. You'll never get out if you keep missing group."

Her arms now come to bind up her skinny knees, her chin planting itself firmly against her wrist: "Screw it, Reid. I'm watching something. Something I want to watch, when I want to watch it. They already control everything else around here. Fuck 'em."

My eyes flutter up to the screen. The girl is watching _cartoons_. Horses prance about in colours that could match her clothing choices; I crouch down on the sofa juxtaposing hers, taking pains not to sit too close or too far away from her.

**_Both could trigger her - for different reasons._**

"This is a show for _children_, Katyn," I say softly, reasonably. Wanting to encourage her to get up and go to group more than anything else.

_After all, if I have to go to group..._

_she should go to group._

**_She's infinitely worse off than I am._**

**_At least I know how I *look* to others._**

"Says you, _brain_," she mutters darkly, rousing me from my throughts. I know she doesn't mean it, but I still can't help but go quiet.

I push back the swell of hurt at the "_not-supposed-to-have-been-an_ insult" insult.

**_She has no idea._**

**_None._**

**_She's just hurting_**.

"It's a cartoon about _horses_. Surely you can do better than that. Come on. Come to group."

"_Ponies_," she hisses, turning up the volume to drown out my protests. " It's a show about ponies. And what the fuck is it to _you_ anyway?"

When I stand up a minute later, I can see that her eyes are wet and her face is glum. She chips away at green-yellow nail polish, scrapping a fleck off with one battered finger. The moons of her fingertips are purple from anemia. Purple blood. Blood of the nearly-dead.

_She's thinner than me, and colder than me too, and-_

_you shouldn't push her_

...I feel a slug of guilt crawl right through my stomach, and bite my tongue.

Because there is so much I could say.

That she probably even needs to hear:

**_I'm sorry he hurt you._**

**_I'm so fucking sorry that he took it away from you._**

**_Your childhood._**

I can't say it though. Not really.

_Not aloud._

It would just make it that much more painful for her.

That much more _real_.

Speaking always does.

* * *

My hair is still damp (but not sopping) when I find a place in the rec center and deposit myself into a crimson bean chair.

"Spencer," Dr. Everett welcomes me, face even and calm despite my tardiness. "Better late than never, I guess."

"Sorry," I mutter, not knowing if I really feel sorry at all. Not thinking I really _do_. Just following the sense memory of appropriateness. The latent sense that _once upon a time, I would have said sorry..._

* * *

Dr. Everett is a man in his late 50's. Cheeks the colour of a red beetle. Salt and pepper hair. Not portly, per se, but _almost._ Getting there.

"Katyn didn't feel up to tonight's group, huh?," our mutual doctor asks with resolute equanimity.

Nothing can throw these people off the scent of disorder and shame. They compartmentalize even better than profilers.

I hesitate in my response. It's a loaded question, and we both know it. In solidarity, I go for a somewhat ambiguous response.

"She was watching a show," I add, giving nothing away. "She might come by later."

**_Which is a complete load of crap._**

I know Katyn has no intention of coming to group. Not tonight.

_Not when a man is in charge of asking the questions._

_Not when the man in charge...__reminds her of her father._

I console myself in the knowledge that out of all the males in this ward, I'm the only one Katyn will even talk to without flinching or looking down at her lap.

And that must mean something.

Maybe - just maybe - it means that some part of me is still clean.

**_And that she can sense that._**

**_Because if anyone would know, it would be someone who could smell it_**

**_because they could smell it on themselves, too._**

* * *

The group is fairly evenly divided. Slightly more females than males.

_Mean age approximately 39, but with a mode age of 36._

_Just under 62% female for breakdown._

_Youngest participant is 19 years old._

_Eldest is over 55._

"Spencer?"

I try to pretend that I've been listening. "Hmm?"

The 19 year old - Jeri - laughs. He's the snarliest of our motley crew; probably feels somewhat outnumbered by older females because of it. Of course, there is also something about him that I find unnerving. To the extreme. A sense that the boy is lingering way too damn close to the sociopathic edge.

"Spencer?"

After a few more moments, I realize that I'm still lost.

"I'm...sorry. I-," _shut up._ **_shutupshutup_**. _Don't even play their game._ "Could you repeat the question?"

My voice, miraculously, doesn't tremble.

A week ago everything trembled. My voice. My arms. My hands. And the only way I could get it to stop was to sit on them. Which looked even more odd. Eventually I took to simply stretching my sweater over my hands. It didn't stop the trembling, but it diminished the overt nature of its course until I felt more in control again.

**_Of those frazzled bones sheathed in skin _****_that had nowhere left to go_**

**_and couldn't stop moving because of it._**

To his credit Dr. Everett simply fills me in.

"We're completing a free association game. Julie just gave the word 'paint.' Now it's your turn."

I squint-frown.

"My objective is simply to utter the first word that comes to mind?"

**_As if we all couldn't just cheat at this..._**

Dr. Everett nods. I sigh.

"Umm, _'paint' _is the word?_ Uh_, I guess _'cough' _then?"

Jeri snickers and I stare back down at my hands - now swathed in a blue button down top, stretched over my fingertips.

* * *

At 6:40 pm group ends. A waste of a perfectly potentially _rich_ hour, if you ask me. I could have achieved a lot. Under normal circumstances, of course.

**_For some reason that I cannot fathom - _**

**_some pulsing need..._**

**_I want to take a shower again._**

* * *

When I return to the break room, Katyn is still decked out by the television. Her eyes, like my hair, are also now dry - which makes me feel marginally better.

_My Little Ponies_ is no longer playing. I can't be sure if she deliberately looked for something less juvenile because of what I had said earlier. I hope not.

I let my gaze fall to the television set, wanting to say something. Something to atone for making her feel worse than I know she already feels.

As it stands she's watching some animal rescue show now, so I try to focus on that for a few moments before I realize that the show is almost as disheartening as our last group session.

And that says a lot.

On the show a bald eagle named Chester is being euthanized. It has been decided that due to advanced arthritis in his limbs he'll never fly again, and due to his fear of human beings - the zoo would cause him excessive amounts of stress.

**_So death it is._**

The animal's eyes are closed, and he looks so incredibly vulnerable on the examination table. His small white feather tufted chest is rising and falling. His movements - even under sedation - pained. And to know that any second now...his heart is going to stop?

That he'll never wake up again?

"Well this is depressing," I mutter dully. I know I'll take a hit for it, but at least it helps to clear the air. Set us back on familiar footing.

"This is _life_," Katyn clips back. "And at least they _tried_ to save him. It could have been worse. He can't fly very well. A wolf might have gotten him otherwise. Ripped him to bits. Sometimes _that_ is kinder. Death, I mean. Sometimes it makes _sense_."

As she speaks, my face suddenly breaks out in a sheen of sweat. **And all I can think of is:**

_sometimes it is kinder_

**And all I can think of is:**

_I wish I could have used a needle instead_

* * *

And then - like the thunder after the lightening - Katyn's eyes are large and round and she's whispering to me.

**Something.**

But I can't hear.

I can only SEE.

* * *

_**a slit**_

_**it makes a sound like a nip**_

_**a starchy sound, like fabric pulling apart**_

_**then two slits**_

_**one for each wrist**_

_**but it's not deep enough**_

_**so i do it again**_

_**and again**_

_**i'm hacking apart the skin with the glass**_

_**as if the glass is a pick axe**_

_**and my hands are now coated in my syrup**_

_**but it's not syrup**_

_**it's blood**_

_**and i know i might not come back from this**_

_**and the glass breaks apart beneath my skin from the force**_

_**as i dig it beneath the veins and pull with all my might**_

**and am i screaming?**

**did i scream?**

**maybe**

**or am i crying?**

**i don't know**

**all i know is that there is no pain**

**i am a dummy made of clay**

**not real**

**not real**

**none of this is REAL**

_**and i can't feel anything at all**_

_**not even the burn in my arms where i opened my wrists**_

_**not even the sense that i should scream**_

**all i can feel is the well of heat and blood**

**the almost delicate rivulets of warmth and iron-rose**

**flowing down my arms**

**and it pools in my belly - the blood**

**the blood pools down to my center**

**and onto the ground**

**and i can't keep myself up**

**all i can do is drop the glass**

**and ****watch the wounds on my wrists **

**watch them expand and grow darker and darker**

**and then turn black**

And in that moment

I wanted my mom.

_Oh god, I want my mom to hold me._

_I want to tell her everything._

_I want to tell her nothing._

**_I want to close my eyes and not see it anymore._**

* * *

"Spencer? Spencer!"

And lips are moving, and a girl is speaking.

But I can't hear it very well over the rush of blood in my ears. Then the tide of blood recedes out of my skull and out of my compressed brain - too full with scents and images that I never again want to experience.

And then I am okay.

I can hear again, and feel again.

_The lightening always strikes first. The thunder comes next._

_Sight_

_Then sound._

_And it's no different with PTSD._

_The images come first_

_the sounds of real life come next._

* * *

Katyn's hand feels too warm and too kind on my back. Rubbing circles along my spine.

"It's over," she hushes to me. This spindly little kid, consoling me. "It's _over_ now."

"I'm sorry," I manage to choke out. My throat is clogged with tears. "I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't mean to make you remember. With the TV show. _Earlier._ I know it feels like you lost it, that it's _gone_-"

A pale face stares back at me, contorted. Like a Picasso painting. The eyes and the nose and the mouth...are not where they should be. Nothing is what it should be. _Nothing._

"Reid?," the voice lilts and drifts and drops. And then she speaks again. "What are you talking about?"

I wrap my arms around my chest and try to dispell the panic that is ascending from my core. Clamouring to come on out and make a scene. Because someone is touching me, _and don't they know better-?_

**_Can't they smell it too?_**

I reek of sex.

And death.

And how come no one else can smell it?


	6. Chapter 6

**Title - Whittled - Part 6  
**

**Author - Kourion **

**Summary: **For two months, Spencer Reid had been missing. And now he had been found. Abducted by a man called the Hunter Moon Killer. And like all of the HMK's victims, Reid had been brutalized. But unlike the others, he's the only one to have ever been found alive. / Reid-pain. HC/ Morgan-Reid friendship fic.

**Author's notes: **I've been working around the clock lately, and I am now working at a secondary job in addition to a full time job. Not the greatest combination with my insomnia. XD

That said, the words are not coming easily these days. I think it's partly sleep deprivation. Maybe I need to quit kick boxing and swimming? (Sleep has taken a back seat space, which is ridiculously myopic of me. I need to get more sleep. That's not in question).

However, right now my time is extremely limited these days, which is one reason why my stories are not getting updated as often as I'd like! Please bear with me while I work out the kinks with my 'social' life ;)

Also, if this chapter sucks - again, I apologize. Often writing is a lot of fun for me. Lately it has been feeling less fun. I think it's the tiredness kicking in. It's hard for me to 'know' if what I'm writing makes sense, or holds any emotional power. I just don't feel it these days.

But perhaps you do.

I hope so.

**IMPORTANT:** this is partly AU. (Obviously).

So, not to be a spoiler-freak, all I can say is that this fic will not feature Maeve, and all that goes along with her addition to the show, in canon. Please keep that in mind.

Nor will it be or become a Reid/other-character romance. I really don't know how too great I'd be with that genre, as I've never written a romance before. (My first attempt to do so will be, undoubtedly, with The Mentalist).

But, I'm all for Reid branching out and developing a true friend with someone outside of his team at the BAU. This chapter deals with that subject a little more fully.

* * *

**Morgan's POV**

* * *

I'm in such a rush today that when I finally get to the hospital, I end up slamming the car door on my fingers.

Despite my best efforts, I let out a string of expletives.

Gingerly grabbing my hand to my chest, I survey the damage. Miraculously - nothing looks broken.

_Thank God._

I hold Reid's book bag in my good hand, and debate if I should hand him these materials. I don't want to make him feel more exposed...

_...and if he's getting books on dealing with schizophrenia_

_when he's already memorized all the best literature already..._

_then he's not merely concerned..._

_he's scared..._

_really, really scared._

Even so, I decide that I must bring the books. That if I don't bring in the materials - well, I'm doing exactly what he _doesn't_ want me to do. What he's accused me of doing, already. Of walking on eggshells around him.

He's called me on it.

He's called the _whole team_ on it; that facet of treating him like he "would lose it." And of course, by many peoples guidelines - he already has. But to critique his behaviour now would be the epitome of unfair. He's gone through more horror in the last three months than most people experience in their entire lives.

If anything, he's handling things exceptionally well.

And he has a point. A very good point.

He didn't attempt suicide because he was clinically depressed. No chemical imbalance swayed his decisions. Not that there is any shame in that, of course._ Not that I wouldn't have his back as much as I do now, if that had been the case. _But the origins leading to his decision to take his own life were completely different.

And as much as I want him to get treatment, to get better, and to be more like the Reid I'm used to, I admit he has a point. He shouldn't be here.

_It's not fair._

**_Of course, none of this is fair._**

**_Not for him._**

**_Not for anyone else that finds themselves in such a place._**

**_How could it be?_**

What's more; he has a near phobia of mental hospitals. If anything, I've seen him become more rigid in how he holds himself, his posture, his words...since his arrival. He seems brittle now. Clean, efficient. No rushing, no immense or expansive rambling. No postulating, no philosophical questioning. No tantalizing facts that, at one time, I'd pretend to find aggravating but secretly found amusing at worst and fascinating, often.

**_What I wouldn't give to have him behave like that once more._**

_Passionate about everything. Wanting to share every interesting factoid with the team._

_Wanting to learn and grow even more than he already has, in his mind, his heart._

_ Even when the rest of us could never catch up with him..._

_But he would never hold it over our heads. Because he never did that._

_For all his brilliance, he was never a snot about it._

_He just wanted to share with us._

_The things he loved._

_Perhaps that's how he showed loved._

**_Perhaps it's as simple as that._**

No. Reid's not here for the classic reasons.

He's not here because of a chemical imbalance. Although those possibilities, within his heavily tormented life, would have been understandable in their own right.

Instead, he had lost hope. He had lost hope in our abilities to find him, as sad as the thought makes me. He had been left with a sadist 24/7 for more than 2 months. And he honestly believed that was it, for him. But before his foreseen end at the hands of Daley, he made the decision to end things on his own terms. By his own hands. No one in the world can blame a person for attempting what he tried to do.

Not if they knew, as we did - _as he did_ - what the end game scenario was. Suicide, in that situation, was possibly the sanest thing he could have done.

And how much of what he is feeling now is simply the feeling of shame? Of guilt? Of situations and decisions that he has absolutely no reason to feel guilty about?

Reid's always carried too much guilt.

He's always taken on way too much.

Too much ownership, for experiences and deeds which he never should have owned in the first place.

* * *

Belinda - one of the main desk nurses - buzzes me through.

"How's it going Agent Morgan?," she asks warmly.

I give her a grin. A grin that probably looks sheepish, if the tension in my facial muscles is anything to go by.

So I hold up my hand by way of explaination, and make a slight waving motion with my hand. The limb throbs and hurts as I bend my fingers.

_'Good job there, Mr. F.B.I.'_

_I won't even be able to hold my weapon properly for the next few days..._

_Let's hope you don't get called out on a case._

"I had a little...accident with my car door. Obviously."

Belinda's eyes travel from my eyes to my hand in 0.1 seconds flat. She quickly rises from her chair to examine the injury.

"It's okay, Belinda," I try to assure her, in my calmest profiler voice. "I'll just get some ice on it when I get home."

She gives me an irritated look. "It's going purple _now_. By the time you get home, you won't be able to bend your fingers. You go on in - but head to the break room first. Get some ice on that hand!"

Belinda is, I suspect, only slightly older than I am. But she sometimes talks to me as if I am her son. She most likely is the eldest sister in a long line of brothers, and most likely played a critical role in raising them. Or she may be the eldest child to a younger brother considerably younger than she is, as her protectiveness is astounding.

She buzzes me through, and I give her a nod.

"Yes ma'am," I drawl, which earns me a good natured shake of her head.

* * *

But I keep my deal.

I head to the break room, and survey a bowl filled with tangerines, frosted water glasses and a station that dispenses different fruit juices. My eyes then fall on a tea kettle and a coffee maker. Lined up tidily are saltine crackers, individually packaged, and chocolate granola bars, small containers of single serving peanut butter and jam, and other snack selections.

A sign on bright yellow paper reads,**_ "If you have a snack, please tidy up after yourself and wash your own dishes! Signed, Your Friendly Neighbourhood Nurses."_ **

Underneath the sign is a big smiley sticker that reads, _"You're super!"_

Yes. You got it. The type of sticker that you'd see in a stationary store that teachers buy for their 6 and 7 year old students so that they can affix sticker-encouragement to a child's 'Math Minute' addition tests.

_No wonder Reid feels so frustrated._

_So...babied._

He's already sensitive enough about being treated younger than his age (although in the last few years the overt condescenion from other agents has markedly diminished). Still. It's a sore spot.

I know that. Most people, in a relatively short period of time also know that.

I open the break room freezer. Not much here, save for canisters of frozen orange concentrate.

Meals are fairly well regulated, I supposed. After all, about half of this ward alone is filled with those suffering from various eating disorders, never mind depression.

As case in point, when I shut the black freezer drawer a mussed up face of one of the residents swims into view. Abnormally thin, the girl. Petite. Not more than 5 ft._ If that._ She looks incredibly young for the ward, but it's hard to tell how much of that is natural, and how much of that is emaciation and the resultant stature of a bone-child that is left behind in the wake of self-starvation.

The girl gives me a cautious examination, trying to place me, as I divert my eyes away from her.

**_I don't want to stare at her. She's probably already self-conscious._**

I pull out a can of orange juice, feeling a little bit stupid as we continue to eye one another without words. Me, less obviously, of course. After a moment she clears her throat.

"I know you. I've seen you around. You're Spencer's friend, aren't you?"

She sounds...congested. Her voice is a little bit raspy, as if she has a sore throat. It's not unpleasant, the sound. It just sounds as if it hurts her to talk.

Thoughtlessly, my eyes drift to her throat, and I force myself not to turn away when I realize _why she sounds the way she sounds_. Her throat looks like it has been excoriated. The flesh looks as if it has bubbled up from her esophagus, then scarred over again in thick, pinky patches.

_**What the hell caused that?**_

She seems to realize where I'm staring, and takes a few steps backwards.

I see her then haphazardly pull at the sleves of her shirt - a plaid yellow and black sleeved top, drapped over a thin pea green tank top. The bones of the girls' chest rises in hollowed, nub format against fish-white skin. Her hip bones jut out enough to take her past being _thin_. Past skinny, even.

It almost looks as if claws are gripping at her from the inside, trying to break through very thin outer flesh.

Idiotically, for a second...I wonder if it hurts. That thinness. _That level of thinness._

**_I wonder if it hurts Reid._**

_Not just the lack of food._

_But also the contortion that his body is going through, now._

_Does it physically pain him?_

_Or does the pain merely exist in the realm of the psychological?_

"You can ask you know," the girl mutters, breaking me from my thoughts.

"Huh?"

"My throat," she clarifies. "You're curious."

She doesn't seem angry, or defensives. Merely studious.

I feel a warmth infuse my face, and I wonder why I feel like this. I've spoken to countless people about countless ugly things, but this is different.

This girl is not a criminal.

This girl is a victim.

In some horrible way, she is. I don't know how, of course. I just know that she is.

"I'm sorry. It's none of my business."

White eyelashes blink against pale cheeks, as if in slow motion. As if she's terribly exhausted.

She looks like an albino, too - though I suspect that's simply malnutrition. Anemia, merged with a tendency to hide out under covers for warmth, away from light and people and life. That would make anyone very pale, indeed.

And the fact that she's even thinner than Reid is now, even post-weight loss, has me reeling.

Her eyes almost test me. _Will I, or won't I ask?_

_That's what she wants to know._

She smiles then. Suddenly. As much as she can with a throat that scarred.

_I still have no idea what would cause scarring like that._

_Fire, maybe?_

_But the rest of her face and torso isn't burned. Not like that._

In the end, she decides to speak on her own.

"I drank a bottle of Drain-o. When I was a kid. Well, sort of a kid. 13. Not a whole bottle, really. The skin started to come off before I could get that much down. And my body rejected it, so I brought it back up again. By that point, I didn't have that much of a throat left. The doctors say it's a miracle I can talk at all. I'm actually very lucky."

I close my eyes and try to stop the sense of swirling anger. And horror.

_What the hell happened to you?_

_How could you have DONE that to yourself?_

"I'm sorry," I state solemnly, when I've found my voice again.

The girl nods, lightly, and continues to study me. In her alien-way, as if she can't grasp my sadness.

As if she doesn't understand why I would be sad. For her.

"Don't be. I'm not. Life got better after that. It took me to the edge. Edges aren't always bad. Sometimes they tell you things about yourself. About who you are and what you'll do and what your life means to you. Pain can wake you up."

I nod, numbly. What can I say to a girl what such a present need to talk about things I can't even fathom? About emotions I may have never experienced myself.

_Because I know about shame and self-loathing._

_I know what it feels like to have that sort of darkness inside._

_And I still would have never done anything to myself like what this girl did to herself._

"I'm sorry, I-uh," and I never stutter. Not with suspects. Not with anyone. "I'm being rude. But yes, I'm Spencer's friend."

She nods her head, slants her small skull, and hollow eyes stare back at me.

In another world, another time...she'd be beautiful.

Petite, always. But elfin.

Now she looks almost grotesque. It's a horrible thought, but it's true.

Still, if someone can look past it - look past those scars and that pallor - she's still very pretty.

"Spencer isn't...he's not up for seeing anyone today," the child-voice breaks me from my thoughts; the girl then proceeds to pull invisible lint pills from her tank top.

"He said that?," I clarify, holding up the Indigo book bag by way of explaination.

The girl shrugs.

"He didn't have to. I knew this morning, when I saw him - that'd he'd be no good to anyone today. Least of all himself. He didn't even go to group."

I hold in a sigh. I hold in the restless scurrying of my anxiety, churning out adrenaline and tension and blooming in my stomach, making me weak. I roll the canister of frozen orange juice over my hand, trying to focus on something potentially productive.

"What happened?," I test, not really expecting a response.

The girl shrugs yet again. Her white-blonde eyebrows barely raise in response. Her face remains impassive, almost disinterested.

"He threw his breakfast against the kitchenette wall. Mashed potatoes and creamed corn everywhere. Not that I should tell you that. He'd probably kill me if he knew I told you that."

I close my eyes.

This isn't Reid.

Reid's never acted like this.

_I don't even think Reid would have acted like THAT as a toddler._

"Where's he at now?"

She ignores my question.

"Your hand looks like shit, Spencer's-friend. Did you break your fingers or something?"

I look down, and try to ignore the cut marks of where the door tore my skin.

"I don't know. Hope not."

"Mmm," she breathes, "can't really chase down fuck-holes with a bad hand like that. You should get that scanned. If it's fractured, and you ignore it - you're just going to fuck it all up for good."

I exhale. Hopefully not too harshly. I have a sinking suspicion that Reid's going to be swearing like a sailor by the time he leaves this place, if his choice of acquaintances is anything to go by. As from what little I've seen...Reid _likes_ this girl.

"I came to give him his books. He...likes to read. I thought he might want to see me."

I sound like a moron. A complete dullard.

_Reid likes to read?_

**_No shit, Sherlock._**

The girl now grabs a dixie cup from a wall extension, and fills the floral paper cup with distilled water. Takes a prolonged sip. Swallows.

"Want me to give it to him for you?"

I eye her carefully.

"Uh, okay. But I don't even know your name."

She holds out a small hand, with expectation that I'll hand the items over.

"It's Katyn," she adds impatiently. "And he's not up to seeing anyone. Believe me. If I were you, I'd leave it with me and come back to see him later. He's a grouch when he's having an off day."

Ridiculously, I feel like laughing.

Completely inappropriate, but it's true.

"Uh, well...thanks. But I think Reid would prefer I give this to him personally."

The girl - Katyn - eyes the bag then, a small smile tugging at her mouth. Just at the corners. As if she finds something about what I've just said utterly hilarious, but is keeping the thoughts to herself.

Not for long, as it turns out.

"_Naughty boy, Spencer_," she whispers, almost with a laugh. "Hold your fucking horses then, I'll go get him. You can give him his dirty boy-mags in a second."

She's gone before I can say anything further.

**_Great._**

**_Thank you,_ **

I whisper to the air.

* * *

I sit against the counter, orange juice canister now completely defrosted.

My hand feels sticky and hot with juice that has - _somehow_ - oozed out along the seal.

Suddenly, I hear him.

The shuffling. Something about the step. The way he breathes.

It sounds insane, but somehow I've catalogued his distinct sounds. The way he walks or breathes or moves. The slight swallow that resounds loudly in the room before he attempts to speak.

He sounds like Reid.

But then I look up, and the image before me - the expecation...it warps.

Because, from a distance, it still feels like he's here. With us. With me.

But up close, this man, this man-boy...doesn't seem like Reid at all.

"Katyn said that you were demanding to see me."

His voice seems guarded. In fact, his whole body language seems guarded - his arms crossed in skinny-stick fashion over his sweater-vested torso.

"Now that's a bit of an exaggeration," I grin, then hold up the bag of books. "You just left these in my car."

Confusion, and then - suddenly - awful recognition. Reid takes the bag gingerly, curling up the top of the bag as if I do not know what contents lay within.

I resist an impulse to sigh. To pull him towards me and hug him, and let him know that everything will be ok.

Maybe not right away. Maybe not even for a long time. But eventually. It will be.

**It has to be.**

He swallows again, but doesn't speak, and I realize that this low level constant state of anxiety is starting to drain me almost as much as it is undoubtedly draining him.

"Thank you," he mutters, not sounding all that thankful, but also sounding desperately like he's_ trying to sound like he's always sounded._

Trying to be polite, normal and whole. Like he was before.

When we could talk about things.

"You're welcome. I, look Reid, it's not as if-"

He starts to say something, but stops - and his voice hitches. I wait for him to finish, but he doesn't. Instead, his eyes dart to the TV room as if he wants to be anywhere but here, anywhere but with me.

"Let's not talk about this. Let's not make this more serious than it is. Let's not make this _anything_. I don't have...schizophrenia. I'm probably never going to develop schizophrenia. I just-I..."

I quell a distant memory of fear - for him - and force myself to nod.

"I know that."

Reid takes the parcel, his back rigid.

"Do you, uhh," he stutters, slightly, "do you want to watch something on tv?"

He seems lost. Little boy, lost.

"Sure," I grin. "What do you have in mind?"

"I'm not sure. I don't even know what's on."

He walks ahead of me by a few paces, waves his arms around as if he's a tour guide.

"TV room. It's better than nothing," he laments, suddenly seeming embarassed.

"It's nice," I offer stupidly, not knowing what to say. Wishing, desperately, that Penelope was here. She's find something to chatter on about.

_Either that, or she'd take one look at Reid, and burst into tears..._

Reid nods to my last response, then slumps down into a seat and offers me a side seat.

"I have no idea what's on," he reiterates, anxiously. "Uhh, what's on Katyn?"

I notice, immediately, that two other residents are lingering about. A boy of about 19 or 20, and the girl I met earlier.

She gives Reid a falsely sweet smile.

"Nothing that_ you'd_ want to watch," she states definitively and snickers.

I realize that I'm completely lost, while Reid rolls his eyes and glances over to me.

"What did you tell her?," he whispers as he leans into my space. "She's acting strange. _Stranger_ than normal."

He speaks just loudly enough that the girl can hear.

"Oh shut it, Mr. Bookworm," she grouses good naturedly, while Reid smiles. Just a bit.

A tiny little bit.

But he seems relaxed as he does so.

He seems _relaxed_ with a girl who, at the age of 13, drank a bottle of pipe cleaner to kill herself.

I hold up my hands in confusion, playing dumb - while Reid's sight zeroes in on my injury. Just as I know he'd do.

He can't help it. He can't help but be concerned when others are injured.

**It's who he is. It's in his blood.**

"What did you do to your hand?," he sympathizes, softly. "Damnit, Morgan - your hand is _blue_. What the hell happened?"

_Oh yes. The transformation is already starting..._

_He'll be swearing up a storm within a week, I can see it now._

"I slammed a car door on it," I get out, trying not to wince when Reid pokes the skin gently with his index finger.

"How did that happen?"

I sigh.

"I just wasn't paying attention, I guess."

"Don't do that. Slam car doors on your hand. That hurts," the girl quips up at me, settling in on a station and raising the volume. "Everybody shut up now. Movie's about to start."

Reid glances over at me while I mouth, _'bossy,'_ and his eyes suddenly look familiar again. And when he smiles, he could almost pass for happy.

**_And it almost seems real._**

When he lets himself lounge back in the futon, his eyes at half mast with sedatives and sleep deprivation and, hopefully, diminished anxiety - I try to convince myself that all of this is completely normal. That Reid, being here, acting as he's acting - is completely on par with what constitutes a _typical trauma response_. That everything will start to improve now. That it has to improve. Because he has friends, wherever he goes. He has the team. And he has me.

And I'm not about to give up on him.

I decide that before tonight ends, I'm going to speak to Reid's doctor about the possibility of getting him out of the clinic.


End file.
